Ramblings about knitting, life, exploits, and other things.

June 27, 2010

Faithfully Faithless ... Interminably

I have been ..... unfaithful...... and yet, in my unfaith, faithful.

Despite my keen desire to finish Irtfa'a, the interminable nature of the edging has weakened my resolve. I've knit and beaded and knit, and knit and beaded and knit, and still, despite two diligent weeks of effort, I've yet to hit the center panel. I've not even made it to the 58 repeats that would have gotten me to the center of the shawl had I not added to it.

And so, I've allowed myself to be distracted ...

... by being faithful to the members of Seasons of Lace, whose season changed on Monday. Season changes mean lots of work for me. Plenty to do keeps me distracted from lace edging that won't end. Here's a basic list of the major tasks involved in season changes (each, of course, has many steps):

1. Running the raffles for prizes that are awarded to those who posted in various categories based on size or other attributes of the projects (beaded, self designed, handspun), including adding up how many entries each person has earned.

2. Determining winners for the judged categories (including, of course, rounding up the nominees), and building posts that reveal who all the nominees are. (While I know this part isn't interminable, it seems that way -- every day I've got another whole swack of nominations (okay I do ask for them), so sort and, where appropriate, add links and images to the posts I'm building, and sometimes to the poll I'm building).

3. Setting things up so that the members can vote for the Viewers' Choice award.

4. Building new Prize and Sponsor pages for the upcoming seasons; and of course, updating the Prize and sponsor pages for the now past season, announcing who won which prize.

5. Registering all the new users. (More daily efforts that never seem to end).

By being faithful to my family. Secretly, quietly, I've been knitting along on a sock. Yes. It's true, there's a sock. It's for Golf Pro. And now that it's gotten to the foot part, it's easy knitting in line.

Funny thing about this sock. It was looking all... skinny, what with the elastic in the yarn pulling things in. So I fretted that it would have wound up too small for Golf Pro's full sized man feet. So I had Bookworm try on the sock, since green is her favorite color. It fit her. She wants it. But... it also fits the Golf Pro. So it's his sock.

I'm also being faithful to the folks who are knitting a sock of my design. Evidently there's an error or something in the instructions for the Illinois Corn Prairie Sock. I'm tickled to death that it's one of the sock of the month KAL's in the 50 Socks 50 States book's Ravelry group. I'm not so tickled that this problem, which caused one knitter fits, got past both of my testers. This means that I'm re-knitting the heel of the sock.

I've found part of the problem --- a wee typo. I so hate wee typos.

And, I've even figured out a way to let casting on for something entirely new be "being faithful"! you see, Seasons of Lace often runs a KAL (or two) each season. And this season we're going to be knitting Emily Dickinson. So, I'm joining in.

And there, were have just under half of the stitches cast on. I do so hate patterns that start with cast on an interminable number of stitches. Well, okay, 545, but still. There are 275 stitches on that needle. I took a rest and went back to working on the sock heel.

Better still, Kitty will be knitting one too! We'll be Emilying all over the house in lace-ly solidarity.

Meanwhile, I may need to go back to the labyrinth --

Even during that part in the middle where you begin to wonder whether the path you're walking on ends, you know that the center is there to reach. And once you've enjoyed the peace at the center the journey out is just as long, but you know it ends. Though it begins to seem as though everything I'm knitting has no end, just like the labyrinth, I know there's a center, and I know there's an end.

Those of us who think about it are amazed and thankful for all the work you do with season's of lace. Thank you very much.
You're right, those socks do look a bit too small for a guy. But, I'd say Golf Pro needs those socks more than Bookworm does.